The top drawer: Artist extraordinaire Trevillion is still the Master of Movement

Had Sven Goran Eriksson, rather incongruously dressed in pale blue jeans, been seeking anonymity, he would surely not have eaten at a table in the glass-fronted, ground floor goldfish bowl of the London Hilton.

The former England coach could do nothing, however, about Paul Trevillion, artist extraordinaire, cowboy hat-wearing eccentric and benign tsunami.Spotting SGE in the corner.

Trevillion made a beeline for him, introducing himself and before long showing the somewhat bemused Swede examples of his work, complete with quick-fire accompanying stories. At that stage it was only even money that Trevillion would not end up on a plane with Eriksson flying back to Mexico.

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Power of the pen: Paul Trevillion has captured the sporting greats

‘This is how over 50 per cent of my associations begin,’ Trevillion explained. ‘Talking on the practice tee with Mark McCormack for two hours, then I’m on a plane with him to New York.

‘A two-hour chat over a coffee, and I’m at an Osmond’s wedding. A couple of hours talking with Norman Wisdom, and I’m on stage working with him in an eight-week summer season. And on and on and on.’

And on and on.

As friendly and affable and entertaining as the irrepressible 75-year-old presents himself, he can be exhausting. The listener — for dialogue is not easy — would be forgiven for wishing that Trevillion allowed his remarkable drawing to do the talking.

It is a case of lighting the blue touch paper of his fuse of consciousness and sitting back, hoping the tape is long enough and the batteries fully charged. ‘I’m the man,’ is one of his phrases, oft repeated.

Manchester United legend: George Best

‘I was the man,’ he says by way of variety. ‘I was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world. I read all about Jack Dempsey when I was young. I went to school with my head tucked into my shoulders. If you have a big long neck you get knocked out. You have a short neck and you can take a punch.

‘Dempsey used to chew tobacco, so I chewed gum. He used to wash in salt water. That’s why he was never cut. I used to wash in salt. So much salt that my mum asked what I was doing. I was the man. No-one told me about the nose.’

So, instead of spending his time lying on the canvas, he used the canvas to capture boxers for posterity. Trevillion drew Sugar Ray Robinson, Randy Turpin and, latterly, Oscar de la Hoya, with whom he struck up a friendship.

‘Greatest drawing I have ever done,’ he says, rolling out another of his favourite sayings. ‘That’s why they call me the Master of Movement.

‘Greatest drawing I have ever done,’ Trevillion says, rolling out an unmistakable likeness of Jack Nicklaus. Trevillion used to be big in golf, working at various times for International Management Group founder Mark McCormack and for Lee Trevino. His Gary Player Strip became the most widely syndicated instruction cartoon in the world.

Football and footballers became his domain, however. He was just a boy, playing truant from school, when he started hanging around White Hart Lane, home of his beloved Tottenham.

‘I knew Bill Nicholson for 50 years and he never called me by my name. You here again? That’s what Nicholson always said to me. Youhereagain. That was my name.’ Like a stand-up comic, another episode in his busy life, the little Londoner, known affectionately as The Beaver, possesses a nice line in self deprecation.

Basketball star: Michael Jordan

His most recent subject at Tottenham was Dimitar Berbatov, now of course at Manchester United. ‘He’s a ballet dancer. I’ve drawn him as Nureyev. That’s who he is. He can pass the ball without even touching it. It is his balance. It’s frightening. He has the balance of a ballet dancer. No, a ballerina.’

Although Trevillion took over the drawing of the legendary comic character Roy of the Rovers in the 1960s, it is perhaps the football strip You Are The Ref with which he became most associated. It has been published in one form or other, on and off, for more than 50 years and is still making a regular appearance in a Sunday newspaper.

But he has inked portraits of a bewildering array of sportsmen over more than half a century. Listing just some of the names suggests a stature matching his subjects. Pele, George Best, Paul Gascoigne, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Clive Lloyd, Prince Phillip and Tarzan.

Trevillion’s shrill imitation of a referee’s whistle, which he used to put off opposition forwards when a young goalkeeper, raised a few eyebrows and prompted some tut-tuts. His Tarzan cry would probably have cleared the joint.

And then there is Winston Churchill.

Just how a 21-year-old Trevillion, the self-styled Toulouse-Lautrec of Tottenham Tech, came to find himself in the same room as Churchill remains somewhat unclear. Similarly misty is how and why Churchill ended up signing Trevillion’s portrait and no other.

Suffice to say, it is valued at around £4million and is to be found in Trevillion’s bank. But it will go on view at an exhibition in Preston next year.